Bi, Poly, Kinky: A Moment of Introspection

While I was at Comic Con last weekend, I attended a lot of LGBTQ panels. They were actually pretty good and I enjoyed being in each one. I also started thinking a lot more about my journey. Like the why and how of my sexuality and gender expression, I feel like I need to write this out in trying to understand myself better… especially since this is how I process best.

I was raised in a somewhat religious household. While that wasnt really true for my early childhood and my later teenage years, it was certainly true in my pre-teen years. That might be why I tend to be so resistant to religion. Of course, this isn’t really about religion, is it?

It also might be one of the reasons that I’ve always treated sexuality with kid gloves. I lived in a very heteronormative household. It felt like the unspoken expectation was to always be normal… even though I didn’t understand what that met (and still don’t to this day). There was always this expectation that I would always have a boyfriend (as I am, kind of cis female, but more on that later). There was never any discussion of what if I want to date a girl or girls in general. It was always assumed that I would only want to date men.

Which is interesting. Whenever I had someone come out to myself as being something other than heterosexual, it never bothered me. My stepdad who abused me was bisexual. My best friend in high school was bisexual and came out to me first. It didn’t faze me when I heard it from either of them. I’ve always wondered why that was. If it was me being in denial, then I would have had a negative reaction. So, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t denying my sexuality. I think I just hadn’t really thought about it at the time… or even ever.

It seemed natural to me to find both men and women sexually attractive. When I fantasize, I see both as being equally hot. I still would like to date or do anything with women. Unfortunately the time vs. relationships thing is now a thing with 3 concurrent relationships.

So, maybe it’s that I’ve always kind of known that I was bisexual. I don’t know because I don’t remember there ever being any great revelation. It always kind of was. I didn’t have that lightbulb go off in my head the way it did with when I was poly.

It’s interesting because coming out as bisexual and poly happened pretty much at the same time… more or less. For poly, I had tried it before. It blew up horribly in my face because I had no idea what I was doing. It quickly became me being cheated on by an en boyfriend. He didn’t want to leave me, but wanted this other woman. Instead of being honest about what was going on, he would just do things. Now, even now after having done this for 11 years, I know that he cheated on me… though I’m pretty sure he would never admit that.

My first attempt was horrible. I decided that it wasn’t really for me. So, I tried to work at monogamous relationships… which I would repeatedly fail at, in all definitions of the word fail. Then my first “real” poly boyfriend introduced me to the Ethical Slut. I read it and actually had a lightbulb moment. It was one of those, “Yes, this makes total sense! This is exactly how I feel moments!” That is probably the only good thing to come out of that relationship, discovering that I was really poly.

Of course, after coming to terms with that, the boyfriend that I was dating monogamously had to try to wrap his head around not being mono. This is a hard transition. It really is. It probably would have been easier if he wasn’t so controlling and abusive. So he would always keep the brakes on when I would want to go on a date. It was at this time that he also told me, “You better not be bi too.”

At the time it seemed kind of innocuous.

As time passed after breaking up with him I realized that it seems more sinister. Like he knew he was losing control of me. That I wasn’t going to be there anymore to make him look better. He wasn’t going to be able to manipulate and put me down anymore… that time was running out. But there’s nothing more fun then being told that you can’t explore your own sexuality and that you can’t be who you are. As more time has passed, I resent him more and more for that statement than any other.

There’s always something that I’ve always felt awkward about. I’ve always felt awkward about my gender. Not in the way transgender people do. I’ve always shared a certain amount of both masculine and feminine features. It became more obvious once I was in middle school. My “friends” used to call me she male. Of course, this upset and hurt me because I was a girl. I was acting like I thought I should. I didn’t understand the concept of being overly feminine or overly girly. It hasn’t been until a couple of events more recently. One of them is because I am often around a greater variety of the LGBTQ community. I’m no longer stuck in a small echo chamber, but I now see a greater variety of people. It’s also because of my newest relationship that I feel more emboldened to explore my genderqueerness. I love that I’m getting support from all of my relationships to explore who I am.

I think I truly appreciate all of this because I’ve gone through so much bad crap in my life. It took me time to accept who I am. I wish I could have done so at a younger age (like many who learn these things when they were younger). I am so grateful that I am where I am in my life, that I have the people I do in my life. Sometimes I’m utterly blown away by what I have. I feel incredibly lucky or blessed or what have you. All I know is that I’m glad that they’re there.

I’m Back

Well, I am more or less. I’m still dealing with some lingering illness (I have horrible problems with dizziness and caught a chest cold in the meantime). I am feeling better than I was. The holidays are a terrible time to have any kind of illness.

So, what does that mean?

That means content. That means that I will try to get out my impressions of Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest. I have a new story that I’m itching to start. It’s something I’m kind of excited about. I have a lot more of the story I’ve written to share.

I do want to write the end of the year post that I didn’t quite get to last week, so if you’ll humour me, I would like to write it. I also picked up a new Vita… and finally get a chance to play Persona 4: the Golden. I’ll write a bit about that.

What else is there?

There’s Comic Con and Fanime coming up, plus an event called Rockage that I’ll also be writing about… and so much more. What all that is, I’m not entirely sure as of yet. Talking about anime and manga as well as video games are a definite.

So, I’m back. I’m going to try to write more. I just hope that I don’t get sick again. I know that’s asking a lot, but it’s a goal I can go for. Who knows what this year will bring?

Becky’s in the Back Seat, pt. 10: Day the Third, pt. 3 and Day the Fourth: This is the End…

After taking in all that information, we headed over to the Indigo Ballroom. We wanted to make sure that we could get in to see John Barrowman.

So, while we were waiting, we managed to catch the Nerdist Industries panel. Nerdist was smaller but has grown a lot from when they first started. It’s amazing how much they’ve grown. Their panel was largely a Q&A session. There was a lot of questions to be had about things happening within Nerdist Industries. I was going to post a YouTube video of this panel, but of all the things they covered at Comic Con, their own panel wasn’t one of them.

Why, yes, that is John Barrowman.

So, after that was the reason we were their in the first place, John Barrowman.
John Barrowman… what can I say?

When he was on stage, he was on. He was there ready to engage. I never realized that how much he loved his fans, but he does. He really loves his fans. His panel was entirely a question and answer session. It was pretty awesome that that’s what he does every year (he has a panel every year).

So… if there was any way to describe him while on, it would be that he reminds me of Jack from “Will and Grace”. For some reason, that was my impression of him. I kept waiting for him to say, “My one-man show, Just Jack”.

While we were there he let us know that he has a permanent part on “Arrow”. Not a show I watch per se, but it was great to hear that he once again had a stable role.

One of the best Xena cosplays I’ve ever seen. Cosplayer: Bernadette Bentley
http://www.BernadetteBentleyActor.com

He also called his nephew in Scotland to wish him happy birthday. He got everyone in the panel to sign happy birthday. It was sweet and kind of awesome.

It was a fun panel to be in. He was so engaging and friendly. It made me want to meet him because he sounds like he would be great to just know.

After that, there was a little time to kill between John Barrowman and Best and Worst Manga of 2013-2014 (Comic Con to Comic Con).

This is still my favorite panel at Comic Con. I love hearing the arguments for certain manga. It gives me some new titles that I wouldn’t have thought of reading. This is doubly so this year as they had to pick titles that they had never chosen in previous years. So, everything was new. There was no repeats… it also means that there were so many new titles that they hadn’t discussed before.

It was exciting and fun to listen this year. There were a lot of good suggestions this year. I’m gonna have to expand my already expansive manga reading list to incorporate some of these titles.

This group is pure awesome

I also got to talk after the panel with one of the panelists as I disagreed with his worst. He said that Seraph at the End is the worst manga period. While I agree that the main character is annoying, I think that there is a lot more going on than just the main character. I’m more interested in the political machinations that are going on as subtext.

That led us to having a discussion about Shonen Jump titles as we both actively read Shonen Jump. It was an awesome conversation that probably could have gone all night if he didn’t have a party to go to. It kinda makes me sad, because I would have loved to keep talking about it.

After best and worst manga, we decided to head out to the Gaslamp and find some dinner. This was much more difficult to do then one would think. Saturday was busy for… well, pretty much everywhere. There weren’t a lot of places that I could eat because of my special dietary needs. One we went in to we would be waiting an hour to hour and a half to eat. As it was already 8 or 9, we said no to that. We found another place with no hostess and no real way of getting food because it looked like the only people who were working were the bar, the sushi bar and the DJ.

An amazing Attack On Titan cosplay

That was obviously no good. So, we kept walking until we found a place.

We finally found an interesting restaurant, just outside of the Gaslamp that was gluten-free (and I didn’t have to worry about ordering a salad) and could seat us faster than an hour. That restaurant was Bice. They had places to sit and a quick turnaround time. As it was after 9 PM, we ate there.

And boy were we glad we did. The food was impeccable. I had never eaten in a place that I would consider to be truly a foodie joint. This place was it. I got an interesting dish it was named Rigatoni alla crema di Peperone Giallo e Mascarpone, tocco di Zafferano e Salsiccia. It was rigatoni, with a pepper, mascarpone and cream sauce. It had saffron threads and was quickly smoked. It came out under a thick glass dome. It tasted wonderfully. With each bite you could taste the smoke that had infused in to the pasta. It was really good. I would love to have it again. Craig had the rabbit ravioli. He said that the ravioli was also quite good too.

An incredibly accurate Morpheus cosplay

After the food, we split a dessert. It was a chocolate and coffee flourless cake with raspberry, peanut sauce and edible gold leaf. The dessert was to die for. The chocolate, peanut and raspberry went incredibly well together. Everything tasted so good. It was a pricey meal, but it was well worth it.

After dinner, we headed back to our hotel. We enjoyed rest of the evening in as we both felt rather full from dinner. We were also meeting a friend in the hotel bar for a drink before he had to go back home. It was fun to see him again, but it was far too brief.

After getting some sleep that night (finally), we were ready to hit the last day of Comic Con. Sunday is often the most chill day of Comic Con. It’s the last and shortest day. Most people are packing up and leaving. We were heading back to the convention center to check out the final day of panels.

I had been thinking of going to the Emily the Strange panel every year that we’ve gone, but I’ve never made it… until this year.

Emily the Strange originated in Berkeley, around the time I was a Freshman in high school. It was

I think this is supposed to be a pirate Harley Quinn. Please correct me, if I’m wrong.

something of an inside joke. My family would get me Emily the Strange shirts all through out high school. I had a few of them. Given my name, I thought it was kind of funny since it’s pretty much me.

I finally got to share my story with the creator of Emily the Strange. It was one of those completely coincidental things where I was the age, name and personality of the character that he had created. He seemed to enjoy the story immensely. Maybe it was something in the aether of the mid-nineties that just seemed to come together.

Who knows? It was great to finally get to share the story with the creator of a clothing line I’ve been wearing for years. The fact that he loved that that was something that really existed probably made him feel amused.

Emily the Strange has come a long way from when I first found it. It’s not just clothing. It’s also a comic series and there’s also music. It’s cool to see something that I picked up in a small store on Telegraph (that is no longer open, like almost all of Berkeley from my high school years) in to something that is loved by so many. It’s mind-blowing.

Silent Bob checking out the dealers’ room, sans Jay.

After that, we wandered around the dealers’ room one last time. It was as crowded on Sunday as it was every other day of the Con. We made one more round before going out for lunch then back for the final panels.

We wound up getting lunch at a restaurant called the Blind Burro. It was a fun place to go to and the food was good… as were the cocktails. I got a version of a pina colada that used coconut water instead of coconut cream. It made the drink much lighter and refreshing. It was incredibly humid that weekend, so the coconut water was amazing. I also could have street tacos as they were in gluten-free corn tortillas.

The tacos were amazing. The drinks were great. The outside bar was fun to sit at. I would love to go there again… because I enjoyed myself at that restaurant. I would go there again.

My final panel for the Con was called “Full-Time Creative Work on a Part-Time Schedule”. It was an interesting panel. It was part networking and part question and answer. It was a great idea, but I wish that I was more about the networking as that would have been more useful, in my opinion.

After the end of the con, we headed back to the hotel to decompress and relax… and sleep before the

Caius Ballad from Final Fantasy XIII-2.

long trip back home on Monday.

It was a great Con and I think a lot of good things happened. I’m hoping that I can get more networking in next year.

Who knows?

We’ll wait to see what next year brings.

 

 

 

 

Black Cat and Pam from Archer

Rosie the Riveteer and Jessica Rabbit

Crossplayed He-Man and Orko

Oogie Boogie, on the move

Quailman, all grown up.

Go Speed Racer, Go!

A Space Marin and Space Wolf from Warhammer 40K

SiderMaus

Amazin Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cosplay

Space Dandy and Chun Li spotted

Love these two Pinochio cosplays

Beautiful Maleficent cosplay

Another Space Marine cosplay

Red Ranger from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Samurai

Sister of Battle
It appears that Warhammer 40K was popular this year.

A wood elf and Gandalf the Grey

Black Widow, Winter Soldier and Nighthawk

Becky’s in the Back Seat, pt. 9: Day the Third, pt. 2: Kodansha

After that panel ended, I made my way to a panel that I was actually looking forward to, the Kodansha

Random people, walking in the hall

Comics panel.

I tried to make it to more manga/anime panels as they are something that I enjoy and love paying attention to… largely because I’m that kind of nerd.

So, there’s a lot of information in this, so I’m just going to cover the info.

Attack on Titan, the hugely popular series both here and in Japan. Kodansha prints the manga for Attack on Titan. Well, this month they released box sets 1-4. That’s everything that they have released so far in box set form. They’re also starting a spin-off collection starting in November.

They’re also going to be releasing Natsumi Ando’s series Lets Dance a Waltz in spring of 2015. Natsumi Ando is known for Zodiac PI, Kitchen Princess and Arisa.

Also coming out next Spring is Miki Yoshikawa’s Yamada-kun and Seven Witches. This series is fairly popular in Japan. I”m curious about it myself and might add it to me manga reading list (because it needs to be much longer).

Masster Roshi from Dragonball Z

Maria the Virgin Witch or Junketsu no Makia will be coming out on February 2015. Masayuki Ishikawa (the manga-ka of Maria the Virgin Witch) is an Osamu Tezuka Cultural prize winner. He won in 2008. He won for his best known title, Moyashimon: Tales of Agriculture.

A Silent Voice by Yoahitoki Oima will be released in spring 2015. A Silent Voice is the story about a bully who bullies a deaf girl to the point where he has ostracized himself. He then sets himself on a path of redemption. The story sounds both poignant and sweet. I think that I really want to read this series.

Then there’s the Attack on Titan news.

Attack on Titan, vol. 1 has been on the New York Times Bestsellers list for 57 consecutive weeks. Volume 13 came out on 26. August. Attack on Titan: Before the Fall was released on 17. August in print and 22.July, digital. Attack on Titan Junior High, volume 2 will be released 18.November. The Attack On Titan Collosal edition will be released with 15 color pages in November.

Attack On Titan: No Regrets, volume 1 is out now. Volume 2 is also out now. The Attack On Titan

Someone was brave enough to dress like Beamo and venture in to the Dealers Room.

Guidebook came out in September,

The Heroic Tale of Arslan by Yoshiki Tanaka was released in August. The story is set in the historical setting of Persia and is based off the Persian story Amir Arslan.

Kodansha also holds the rights to the manga series My Little Monster. It is currently available now. My Little Monster is about the relationship of Shizuku, a studious yet cold high school student and Haru, an unpredictable and violent high schooler who doesn’t understand human relationships.

There was a lot of dates and information about upcoming manga releases. It made the otaku in me very pleased to see that manga print releases are still incredibly popular despite the prevalence of digital media.

Becky’s in the Back Seat, pt. 8: Day the Third, pt. 1: Unexpected Meetings

A cute Totoro and Catbus

Not going out did give me a somewhat unique opportunity. As we were down in the hotels lobby, waiting to pick up food, Kevin Smith walked in to the lobby. He looked like he was in a hurry to go somewhere, and was walking fast. He obviously looked like he didn’t want to be stopped and have a conversation with someone. So, instead of meeting him, I figured he should get to his meeting. Unfortunately, someone didn’t read that visual cue of him walking quickly and not really engaging anyone and decided to say hi to him.

He said hello and continued on his way. Instead of being a jerk or blowing a gasket, he was still friendly. It’s still a dream of mine to talk to him about his writing process and being an indie film darling. While I’m not a huge fan of his writing (if you stop watching the movie, you can’t tell who’s speaking because the dialog is all pretty much the same), I am a fan of his movies. He knows how to write to the zeitgeist. I would like to think that I can do that as well.

We enjoyed the night in and got enough sleep to make it to our panels tomorrow.

We got up early enough to catch our early morning panels. I had totally meant to get going and get

Zubat from Pokemon

ready for my first panel. While we were heading over to the convention center we ran in to the guy who owns Craig’s comic shop, Joe. He’s well-known at Comic Con and hosts the Eisner awards. It was pure chance that we ran into him. He introduced us to a man whose a working voice actor by the name of Marc Biagi.

It was a great conversation. We talked about a bit of everything. It’s a shame we couldn’t talk a bit more. He was fun to talk to. Who knows, maybe next year we can talk more.

After the conversation, I made a beeline to my first panel of the day called Writers Unite. It talks about the process of writing and how to market yourself, including pitching. They also covered building your portfolio.

I found the panel interesting. I kind of wish I managed to make the beginning of the panel. I’m pretty sure they covered quite a bit of stuff that I would really want to know.

Hawkgirl

The panel was given in a way to largely get through a lot of information.

Dat Week

So… this week.

I got a lot less done that than I would like. Unfortunately, there is a good reason for it.

While we were driving to Fan Fest, our car died. We had a crack in the radiator and couldn’t leave Las Vegas until it was fixed. We were waiting for our car until Tuesday.

We drove all day to get home. We got home late and it was time to get back to work.

Unfortunately, that also meant that I was too tired once I got home.

I had a blast at Fan Fest. And there are pictures a plenty to share as well as stories to tell. I’ll be finishing up my Comic Con posts. I also have the end of Of Monsters and Men. I’ll start with the new posts promptly on Monday. All sorts of new stuff.

So, until Monday!

A Quickie and an Apology

Hey everyone!

I haven’t been able to keep up with my writing load for a few reasons. One of which I don’t feel at liberty to discuss at the moment. Suffice to say, it’s an emotionally draining reason and making it difficult to motivate myself to write more… despite my desire to do so.

I also have 2 big things coming up within the next week that requires a lot of my emotional and physical bandwidth. Those being San Francisco Decompression and Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest. Decom is the most immediate as it’s on Sunday and Fan Fest is the next weekend. I do plan on writing about my impressions of Fan Fest. I don’t think it will go more than 2 posts (one actual post and one of pictures).

So, a lot of exciting things happening. A lot of things that need to be taken care of before next weekend. Lots of busy, busy, busy.

And I sincerely apologize for it. When I do come back, I promise to have more Comic Con, more short stories (both of them and a special Halloween story) and more other stuff. I have a show that I would like to write about… and some manga to talk about. Also would like to write a piece about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There’s a lot on the horizon, but first, patience as this next week passes.

Until then!

Becky’s in the Back Seat, pt. 7: Day the Second, pt. 2: The Chaos and the Crush

Of course, the fact that I had only gotten about 2-3 hours of sleep the night before made it that Friday… so I was starting to find it incredibly difficult focusing on panels. Instead, we decided to hit the dealer’s room. I hadn’t a chance to see it on Thursday, so why not check it out on Friday.

This guy was impressively still and did this for the whole con. It’s a pretty impressive cosplay.

And as prior years, it was a madhouse.

For some reason this year it felt more hectic. It seemed that anyone who was filming at Comic Con was filming in the dealers’ room. So, getting around was… interesting. This year we made the rounds from Artists’ Alley to the video game section (if you haven’t seen a map of the dealers’ room, this is it). It really is as massive as the map looks.

And, of course, I have an amusing (or not so amusing but ultimately frustrating) story.

We were walking around the video game section of the dealers’ room. Of course there was plenty of neat con stuff available for sale… and some places were giving away free stuff. So, we were walking by the Ubisoft both and they were pushing people buying Assassin’s Creed 5. They were giving away swanky shirts for anyone who pre-ordered a copy of the game. And they had guys outside the booth trying to get people in to order a copy.

Of course, Ubisoft had just put their foot in their mouth at E3 when they were asked about the lack of playable female characters. Their reasoning, that it’s too difficult to animate the female avatars. Yet

April O’Neil and Casey Jones

they also said that there were going to be a lot more women in Dead Island… just not Assassin’s Creed.

Of course, I remembered that… and I was very disappointed by this. After all, how is it too hard for a game franchise that makes more money than Dead Island can’t manage to have playable female characters… or any other female characters..

Needless to say, it’s something that annoyed many female gamers.

So, I mentioned my concern and the guy trying to get people in had told me that I needed to have a thick skin. That this sort of stuff happens all the time and I shouldn’t let that stop me from playing Assassin’s Creed.

I’m probably making it sound a bit less patronizing than it actually was. I felt like he was talking down to me because I was a woman.

The interesting problem was that he was also trying to convince 2 other women to buy the game. After he had said that to me, he asked if I was going to buy it and I said I would have to think about it. He

This is just a small potion of the dealers’ room. There were some areas where you could walk or barely move…

then asked the other girls and they said no and walked off.

After spending a lot of time wandering the dealers’ room, we decided to call it day, go back to the hotel and get some drinks at the swanky tiki bar that is next to the pool of our hotel.

Later in the evening, while we were out in the rather large lobby of our hotel, near the restaurant and bar, Kevin Smith made a speedy beeline as though he were meeting someone and running a little late. I didn’t try to stop him to say hello because I could tell he was on his way somewhere. It’s a shame, because if there is one person I would love to have a conversation with, Kevin Smith is one of them. I have a lot of respect for him as a writer/director. It wasn’t meant to be though. perhaps one of these days I’ll actually get to meet Kevin Smith.

Becky’s in the Back Seat, pt. 6: Day the Second, pt. 1: Being Sleepy Sucks, pt. 1

The view from my hotel toom every morning… life didn’t suck

Woke up bright and early Friday morning. I had a lovely breakfast of Italian cold cuts, cheese and some of a wonderful gluten-free baguette from Mariposa bakery. Not exactly what anyone would consider breakfast, but it was worth it. I had to make sure that I was going to be ready to have another day fairly packed with panels… not even enough time to really get lunch.

After finishing breakfast it was time to herd back in to the expansive convention center. It feels both huge and crowded when you’re looking at about 120,000 people in one place.

I quickly made my way to the Neon Alley panel.
Thankfully I made it in time to get a decent seat for the Neon Alley panel. I’m not a huge fan of sitting way in the back for anything… well except for when I was in high school, but that was for entirely different reasons… and I digress.

So, the Neon Alley panel was largely similar to Viz Media panel as Neon Alley is run by Viz. Like their specialized panels, they tend to focus on what the panel is about.

In this case they’re focusing on Neon Alley. So, they start by talking about what Neon Alley is about.

Hercules and Megara

Before last year, Neon Alley was a subscription-based online channel. They wound run shows on a timetable. They dropped that model in favor of just having a Hulu channel where they stream anime on demand. This is a huge change, and makes it easier to both see what you want, when you want and to be able to binge-watch series.

They then told us what they are currently showing on the Neon Alley Hulu channel. So, what are they showing on Neon Alley?

Here’s a list: Sailor Moon (subbed, dubbed coming soon), Naruto Shippunden (dubbed), Ranma ½, Bleach (up to episode 205 both dubbed and subbed), Death Note (dubbed and subbed), Vampire Knight (dubbed and subbed), Inuyasha (entire series, dubbed and subbed), Blood Lad, Gargantia (dubbed). Starting in fall they will be showing Naruto: Rock Lee and Ninja Pals.

Last month they said they were going to have Bleach up to episode 229. They also were going to have

Love that I found Link with the Postman. Looks like the Bunny Hood really works.

12 new episodes of Naruto. They also put up 13 more Nura episodes (for you Nura fans out there).

Other then that, it was largely a lot like the Viz Media panel. There wasn’t any news that was specially held specifically for this panel. They did, however, talk a bit about what they were planning for their Sailor Moon panel on Saturday.

After that, I made my way to my next panel. For the first time in 3 years I finally made it to the Comics Art Conference. They always seem to have interesting topics, but I’ve always had other panels the same time. I finally made it this year.

I made it to the panel on sexism, gender and comics. It sounds like an interesting enough topic. Something that seemed to largely been discussed this year.
The topic itself was interesting. The Comic Arts Conference is a place for scholars to present their papers on to comic fans. That means that not everyone is going to be as equally engaging. That was the problem that I ran in to. The topic itself and the papers on their own were interesting. The people presenting them were not as engaging. So, I found myself less interested as the panel went on.

The papers being presented were on the following: A Methodology for the Analyzing of Sexism in

Child Deadpool is ready to fight some crime… or make witty remarks.

Comics: Birds of Prey, Love Slaves and Wonder Woman, Golden Age of Wonder Woman (this one had an interesting discussion of psychology) and Abjection and Objectification of Motherhood in Jack Kirby’s Fourth World.

All interesting titles, but the presenters lacked the charisma to keep me truly engaged. In many ways that made me sad. Since they’re dealing with more scholarly subjects, you have to find a way to make this more engaging.

…About Last Week

So, last week wound up going in a direction that I hadn’t anticipated. I had wanted to get writing done, unfortunately life got in the way.

Monday I went to Berkeley to see about exorcising some really old demons. Unfortunately, Berkeley isn’t in stasis. So, it was hard for me to have the same experience that I had when I was in high school. Most of the places from then are long gone and replaced by some chain or were simply closed. Rasputin’s is no longer like what I remembered. I didn’t get in to Amoeba, which was my favorite record store. In many ways, I didn’t get what I was hoping out of the excursion.

I also had my first therapy appointment in years. Life has been a bit on the brutal side as of late. So, that requires me working through some old, painful and crunchy issues. Unfortunately, all of which are making my quite depressed.

That was last week… So, what about this week?

Well, I hope to have up more Comic Con stories. I’ve been working on getting more written up. I also hope to have at least one update of a short story. I have something else I might wanna write about. So, I’m gonna try to get this done.

Last week stalled a bit. I’m gonna work hard to make this week better than the last.

So, until then!